Celestron has taken its expertise in designing telescope mounts that can track and pan with the motion of the stars and created a cheaper, lightweight version called the Virtuoso that can also be used with a camera to capture massive multi-shot images.

The company is basically muscling its way into GigaPan's turf providing photographers who like capturing gigantic gigapixel images another automated tool. Powered by eight AA batteries the Virtuoso can automatically trigger the shutter on Canon EOS DSLRs, so photogs with Nikon or Sony gear will have to sit there and do it manually, but for $300 the precision mount all but guarantees that assembling a series of shots into one giant image will be a breeze.